"Does your friend do that sort of thing as a business?" inquired Jerry with a laugh. "I wish you'd give me his name, so I could come that game."
"His name is Gordon Wrenmarsh," said the collector quietly; "but his charges are high. Shall we go?"
"Yes," Jack responded. "It is high time we were off. I'm not anxious to speed the parting guest, but a good send-off means an early start."
Jerry left his place, and the three went on deck. The cutter, already manned, was by the steps. The bleak English air struck chill and raw to these men fresh from the warm sunshine of the Mediterranean. The harbor and sound, crowded with shipping as they were, seemed flat and dull; the Citadel, the Battery, the various docks and buildings were depressing. A great volume of dun coal-smoke overhanging the "Three Towns," from the Hamoaze to Sutton Pool, added to the general air of gloom. To cap all this, the fog was coming in from seaward, and already its ghostly echelons had floated past the north end of Drake Island. As the three men came on deck the cutter was bobbing up and down in the wash of the ferry which plies to and fro across the Cattewater, and which had just gone heavily past.
"Dear England!" ejaculated Mr. Wrenmarsh fervently under his breath in the face of all this. Then turning to Taberman, "You're not coming ashore with us?"
Jerry shook his bare head, and gave an exaggerated shiver for reply.
"No?" the collector said. "Well, we'll say good-by here, then. Lucky we met, wasn't it? Those combinations—they make the world go round; stop it sometimes. Good-by. Pity, great pity, you weren't at Oxford, Mr. Taberman. It would have done you good, made a man of you."
"Not if Harvard's failed to," retorted Jerry loyally. "Good-by, and good luck. Hope we'll meet again some day."
They shook hands, and Mr. Wrenmarsh and Jack descended to the waiting cutter.